I think Peter and Stuart's video / picture blog about life / politics / etc. where you live is a very cool idea. Reading some of these posts makes me wonder if we all suffer from a "Grass is greener" mentality. I've always thought that Switzerland did many things right. From what I understand crime is very low there. Aren't all males required to serve in the military for something like two years?  I'd also heard that most all families there have guns in their homes.

One of my perceptions from my travels in Europe is that when European's come to the US a very large number of them either go to New York or Las Vegas. I've always wondered what kind of perception people would have of us if all they knew about the US came from the media and trips to those two cities. Kind of goes along with Scott & John's "American Idol" views. Living your life mortgaging yourself to the limit so that you can try to emulate the lastest movie start doesn't make a lot of sense to me but sadly I believe that is how many in the US live.

I have learned one thing from this thread - Sad Duck lives in Indiana!

Absolutely, when I'm in the US (I haven't has been for a while now which is unfortunate) I notice most of my friends are watching BBC on cable because they don't trust the other networks. A friend in NYC watches BBC world/America (which is censored to a limited extent I think), but he told me yesterday that it suddenly stopped transmitting last week! Conspiracy?

BBC is not without it's problems and biases though, but I have to admit I am simply amazed at what the US mainstream reporting gets away with... Mind you we have our own Fox style TV called Sky News.